Stephanie Duke is currently a staff attorney at Disability Rights Texas and Equal Justice Works Disaster Resilience Program fellow. As the Protection and Advocacy agency for the state of Texas, Disability Rights Texas’ mission is to ensure individuals with disabilities know and exercise their rights to ensure full and equal participation in society.
While representing disaster survivors with disabilities, Stephanie has seen first-hand the disparities that vulnerable and marginalized populations face in preparing, responding and recovering from disasters. In conjunction with providing direct services, Stephanie addresses these inequalities, by collaborating with stakeholders to identify systemic issues, organizing and participating in education and training for the disability community and pursues impact litigation to remedy the mechanisms and processes, which discriminate against individual with disabilities throughout disaster and emergency services.
Stephanie represents disaster survivors in a variety of disability related disaster legal issues to ensure equitable access and an equitable opportunity to participate and benefit from all disaster services. Stephanie’s cases include housing discrimination, civil rights discrimination around inequitable opportunities to participate and benefit from CDBG-DR funded programs, systemic access to FEMA’s programs and services, access to equitable emergency services and health care, and continuation of educational program under 504 or IDEA when students with disabilities are impacted or displaced by a disaster.
Prior to attending law school, Stephanie was an educator and educational diagnostician, focusing on the needs of special education students and their families. She is an undergraduate of the University of Oklahoma (Philosophy and Biochemistry), Houston Baptist University (Masters of Education; summa cum laude) and Thurgood Marshall School of Law (magna cum laude).